


Fathers' Day

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Series: Fathers' Day [1]
Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Adoption, Bisexuality, Child Abandonment, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Drug Use, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 21:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8862028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: Based on that famous Tweet by Ewan McGregor about Curt and Arthur ending up together, sober and with kids.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philipa_Moss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/gifts).



“Are you the father?” Arthur asked. He was a little amazed that he’d found his voice at all, and hadn’t been too stunned to speak.

Curt looked away from Arthur, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette.

“I might be,” he said, lighting the cigarette and taking a drag on it. “There weren’t a lot of -  opportunities, but there were some.”

Arthur sighed. “Jesus. So you were sleeping with this girl -”

“Debbie,” Curt said automatically. Arthur thought his face darkened when he said her name, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Right. You were sleeping with your friend Debbie, who may or may not have just abandoned her kid, who may or may not be yours?”

Curt gave a bitter laugh. “Pretty much. And his name’s Matthew.”

Arthur looked over at the baby sleeping in the cot Curt had somehow obtained. He couldn’t believe any of this. He hadn’t realized that Curt was still sleeping with women so recently. He knew Curt had always identified as bisexual, but Jesus. This kid couldn’t be more than a year old, not that Arthur was sure looking at him: he didn’t know anything about kids. Having kids was obviously not something that would ever happen to him.

“Stupid name,” Curt went on, “ _Matthew_ -”

“I like it all right,” Arthur said, as if his preferences mattered.

Curt’s mouth twitched. “Really?”

“Yeah. But that’s not the point.”

Curt took another drag of his cigarette, frowning.

“I realize this is a huge deal,” he said, swallowing his words, and sounding about as insecure as Arthur had ever heard him.

 _Shit,_  Arthur thought.  _He thinks I’m going to leave him over this._ Arthur didn’t think he would, even if staying with Curt suddenly meant adopting a kid - or more likely, looking after one for a little while.

He was trying to put that realization into words when Curt cut him off.

“I know, understatement of the fucking century,” he said, exhaling his cigarette smoke. “But she’s - Debbie, I mean - she’s in no position to look after a kid. I hope she’ll pull through, but I doubt she'll ever be able to - well - parent.”

“I don’t think anyone would let  _us_ keep him, either,” Arthur said, like a child explaining to a younger sibling why their parents wouldn’t allow a stray dog or cat in the house. “I mean, two men. If his mum ever wants him back, or if the courts get involved, no one will allow it.”

Curt shrugged. “They might have to, if I’m the father.”

 _If_ , Arthur thought. It was too weird. He’d started  _seeing_ Curt shortly after Matthew must have been - born? Conceived? Arthur didn’t mind Curt’s history of sleeping around, and he didn’t mind that Curt had had some relationships with women, even though Arthur himself had only had a couple disastrous experiments with straight sex. (His friend Jess, from his first proper job in London. She must really have fancied him to put up with him on two occasions.) But the idea of either him or Curt having a kid was too - well, _weird_.

“He’s so quiet,” Arthur said, looking back at Matthew.

“Doesn’t mean he’s not mine,” Curt teased.

It was just like him to try joking around to break up the tension between them, and the tension since he’d come home tonight was so thick Arthur could almost reach out and touch it. Arthur tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“No, I meant - ” He paused. He knew he should be tactful, and should say the sort of decent, non-judgmental thing he’d say in an interview while probing some outrageous subject. “Your friend, or your ex, is so fucked up that she abandons her kid to the first person who answers the phone - ”

So much for tactful. Happily, Curt was being cooperative, or at least, wasn’t inclined to defend Debbie.

“I didn’t _want_ to,” he said. “I didn’t want to answer -”

“Well, you didn’t know it was her calling,” Arthur pointed out.

Curt hissed at him.

“Arthur, it’s a fucking metaphor,” he snapped. “And you just used the same one. You know I don’t hang out with -” He sighed, struggling to control himself. “You should trust me; I don’t surround myself with junkie basket cases like her anymore.”

 _Then why were you sleeping with her within the last couple years?_ Arthur thought, his jaw clenching. He _was_ jealous. He couldn’t help or deny it. He loved Curt, loved him so much it was almost terrifying. He’d spent more nights than he could count lying awake and wondering what he’d do if Curt found someone else - a fellow musician, someone who was more talented and interesting than Arthur would ever be, or another fan he might meet after a gig and fuck on a rooftop and then fall for some time later. It had never occurred to him that Curt could have been involved with a woman so recently, and fathered a child - if he _was_ the father at all.

But now wasn’t the time to pick a fight. Arthur swallowed hard.

“I know that,” he said, although he wasn’t sure he _could_ trust Curt the way he wanted to. “All I meant was, the poor kid can’t have been well looked after. Shouldn’t he be crying more, or more active? Is he healthy?”

Curt inhaled another drag, and made his way over to Matthew’s cot.

“He’s breathing fine,” Curt said.

“He was breathing really fast,” Arthur countered. “Are babies supposed to do that?”

Curt shrugged. “I think he’s okay.”

“Like you’d know,” Arthur said, with a shake of his head. “Like either of us would know.”

Curt bit his lip.

“I can call a doctor tomorrow,” he said. “You’re right that she probably wasn’t on top of things like that.”

“Yeah, we might need a doctor,” Arthur murmured, remembering a documentary he’d seen about children of drug addict parents. “But then they might get social services involved, and it's like I said - I don’t know if they’ll let us keep him.”

To his surprise, Curt grinned.

“You sound like you _want_ to keep him,” he said, finishing his cigarette and lighting another.

Arthur forced himself to unclench his jaw, noted the clicking sound with annoyance, and rubbed at it.

“You shouldn’t be smoking around a kid,” he said, ignoring Curt’s remark. “Or in the house.” _Or at all._

“Right,” Curt replied. “Fine.” He stepped closer to the window, opened it, and hovered over it to smoke. “Anyway, you didn’t answer me.” He looked at Arthur, eyes sparkling with something like hope. _Jesus,_ Arthur thought. _Too fucking weird._

“I know it’s not something we expected...”

“I’ll say,” Arthur said, rolling his eyes. “I thought we’d just keep arguing over whether to get a cat or a dog.”

Curt sniggered. “When our son gets older, I bet he’ll want a dog, ‘cause cats don’t do anything, and you’ll be outvoted.”

 _Our son. Trust Curt to get ahead of himself..._ But Arthur didn’t say as much aloud. Instead, he said, as he often had, “I’d like to see _you_ get up early to walk a dog - or walk one for an hour or two a day.” Just taking the stairs up to their flat left Curt short of breath, which also terrified Arthur, though he tried as hard to hide his fear as Curt did to hide his shitty health.

“Anyway, I still don’t think we’ll be able to keep him,” Arthur added, nodding his head toward Matthew. “It doesn’t matter what I _want_. And you’re still smoking around a kid. Possibly your own kid.”

Curt scowled, but took his cigarette out of his mouth and held it.

“You don’t have to be so pessimistic,” he muttered.

Arthur looked from Curt to baby Matthew and back again. He was being _realistic_ ; there was a difference. He couldn’t imagine any court or agency letting two men adopt a baby, in today’s world. No matter how fucked up Debbie was, no one would believe that a gay couple was any better - or believe that Curt Wild was any better than one of his former junkie friends, or better than he himself had been a few years ago. He imagined Curt trying, and failing, to convince a court that he was clean and responsible now, and maybe losing it in a hearing as he tried to field increasingly invasive questions. This wasn’t going to end well.

“His mum’s bound to want him back at some point,” Arthur said.

But Curt shook his head.

“No,” he insisted. “You don’t know her, and I do, or did. Honestly, I’m surprised it took her this long to abandon him.”

Arthur looked down. It was hard _not_ to want to help a kid who’d been abandoned like that, if they could. Besides, Curt was right. Arthur of all people should know that being related to someone by blood didn’t mean they gave a damn about you.

“Well, maybe you could adopt him, or get custody or something, if you’re father,” he said. “You should get DNA testing.”

“You won’t kill me if I _am_ the father?”

There was a clipped tone to Curt’s words, beneath the brightness and the hyperbole. He sounded so boyish and, well, needy that Arthur couldn’t help laughing, which he supposed was what Curt had wanted. Arthur couldn’t be angry with him when he was teasing like that, even if they would have to talk seriously about things at some point. _Yeah, like that’s going to happen._

“I won’t,” Arthur said. He didn’t think he and Curt were involved yet when Curt was still shagging around - or, at least, he didn’t want to think so. “Anyway, we’re going to need a lot more supplies for a baby.”

“Yeah, I was thinking I’d get some stuff tomorrow, since this is my problem to take responsibility for.”

“Not just your problem,” Arthur said. “And not necessarily a problem.”

Curt grinned. “Thanks. Thanks for being so good about everything.”

 _I might regret it,_ Arthur thought. He couldn’t imagine anyone else trying to adopt a child in this chaotic and half-baked manner, but he couldn’t very well say no to Curt, or to Matthew, for that matter.

“It’s fine,” Arthur said. “He’s a cute kid. Looks nothing like you, though.”

“Hey, he’s been asleep since we came home,” Curt protested. “You should see his eyes when they’re open. They’re sort of blue like mine.”

Arthur scoffed. “All babies have blue eyes, even baby animals. You do know that, right?”

“Nah, it’s not like that,” Curt said. “You’ll see when he’s awake tomorrow.”

 _Or in the middle of the night tonight,_ Arthur thought. _Or any minute now._ He sighed.

“I still can’t believe it,” he murmured. “I mean, I’ve never even met my brother’s kids.”

“Same,” Curt replied.

Of course Arthur couldn’t rival Curt for a shitty family background.

“Right,” he said, “I know.” He stood up to join Curt by the window and kissed him, careful of the still-lit cigarette he was holding.

“We should go to bed, though,” he added, with another glance at Matthew. “If it’s okay to let him out of our sight…”

“I think it’s fine,” Curt said.

Arthur deferred to Curt’s judgement without knowing why. He didn’t really think Curt was the father, though it was hard to be objective about something like that. Then again, Arthur was good with faces and with recognizing people or seeing family resemblances - not that it mattered much. Even if Curt was the father, it still didn’t mean he knew what the hell he was doing. But he didn’t think they’d get any further standing around and bickering. It had been a weird night. They should get whatever rest they could before Matthew needed them.

He just hoped this wouldn’t end in complete disaster.

*

Arthur thought he’d slept a few minutes at most when he woke up to the sound of a baby crying. He remembered Matthew as consciousness flooded back to him in a strange, dreamlike jumble, jumped out of bed, and hurried to the living room.

To his surprise, Curt was already holding Matthew in his arms and trying to feed him a bottle of baby formula. His eyes met Arthur’s from across the room.

“Is he all right?” Arthur asked.

Matthew flailed one tiny arm, almost knocking the bottle from Curt’s fingers.

“Hell if I know,” Curt snapped, “but he’s plenty strong.”

“Well, I don’t think he’s hungry,” Arthur pointed out. “Diaper, maybe? I hope you got some…”

“Yeah, I _did_ ,” Curt said. “Here.”

He passed Matthew to Arthur, muttering that he wasn’t a complete idiot, and rummaged in a plastic bag he’d brought home for a half-pack of diapers, but that didn’t help, either, when he tried it. Matthew kept crying, poor thing.

“For fuck’s sake, kid,” Curt said, over the child’s ear-splitting and heartbreaking wails, “what the hell do you _need_?”

Arthur bit back a joke about Curt’s swearing around a baby; he might be too demoralized to be made fun of now. Curt took Matthew back and held him, trying to be reassuring or parental or whatever, while Arthur stood around beside him, watching helplessly and biting his nails. He couldn’t imagine what Matthew might need, unless the kid was sick somehow. Arthur hoped not. Of course he didn’t _know_ ; he knew as little about kids as Curt himself did. Hell, he’d only ever had one pet, and that was the cat his mother had gotten when Arthur was seven years old and the next door neighbours had had a problem with mice in the house. Boots had been a nice cat and a good friend to Arthur, who was already a lonely misfit in primary school. But Boots had been like most cats - quiet and good at looking after himself, and therefore completely different from a human baby.

Matthew gave another ear-piercing wail, just as an idea struck Arthur.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Curt glared at him over Matthew’s head.

“I didn’t notice,” he said. “You can check. _You’re_ just standing there.”

Chastened, Arthur ducked back into the bedroom to look at the clock on the night table.

“It’s a quarter after four,” he said when he returned to Curt. “So I can hold Matthew for a bit, and if he doesn’t calm down in, say, ten minutes, I’m calling my mum.”

Curt laughed at him, which was a little unexpected, but better than him being angry at Arthur’s uselessness.

“That sounds excessive,” he said.

“It makes sense,” Arthur insisted. “She’s had kids.” He thought, but didn’t add, that if his father answered the phone, he could do what he always did and hang up without a word to minimize the awkwardness. Either way, he and Curt be no worse off than they were now.

“What’ll you tell her?”

Arthur hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“That I’m adopting a child,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. His mother might like that: it might make it seem like he was leading a more normal life. Then again, it wouldn’t look good if Matthew ended up back with his mum or with a straight foster family in a few weeks or months, so maybe he shouldn’t tell her, or anyone, yet.

“Or I’ll just say I’m babysitting,” he added, over Matthew’s crying.

“Excessive,” Curt repeated. “And anyway, Carrie - my drummer's girlfriend, you remember? - she has a kid, and they’re here in town...”

“Yeah, where it’s four in the morning,” Arthur said. “It’s after nine in England, so a decent hour to call someone.”

Curt snorted.

“As long as it’s a decent hour _somewhere_ …”

“Well, I don’t see what _you’re_ complaining about,” Arthur countered. “Half the time you’re still awake now, too.”

“Point,” Curt said. He tried rocking Matthew in his arms, despite the baby’s nonstop flailing and crying. “Come on, kid,” he said, in an exaggerated whine, “can you _please_ stop? It’s not our fault we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing…”

Arthur rolled his eyes and stifled a yawn before he could say, “I doubt that’ll help. Let me try. You could make coffee, since we’re probably not getting any more sleep tonight.”

“Fine,” Curt grumbled. “Come here. Try again with him.”

And Arthur joined Curt by the window and the makeshift cot, and let Curt hand Matthew to him for the second time that night or that morning. He tried not to remember how he’d never done anything like this before - never got close to his colleagues who had families, even people who were nice to him and invited him over for Christmas or Thanksgiving, and had never even met his own brother’s kids back in Manchester. He also tried not to think of how painful it would be to raise a child, or, worse, get attached to one and then lose them.

“Come on,” Arthur said, wondering how the hell you were supposed to rock or bounce a baby without dropping them, and what the point even _was_ , “what’s the matter, eh?” There was a check in Matthew’s crying. Then it started up again before Arthur could so much as exhale. From the corner of his eye he saw Curt sniggering at him - as if he’d had any more success. “We’re not so bad…”  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for prompting this scenario; I really hope you've enjoyed this treat. While I've used Ewan's Tweet as a starting point, I've kept Curt and Arthur in New York for now. Also, I head canon that Arthur is right in that Curt’s not the biological father, but wrong about whether they'll be able to adopt baby Matthew (and also underestimating just how good a charm offensive Curt can put on, even to normal, square types in law/social services). Finally, I realize this story may be similar to others that have been written based on the same Tweet/prompt, and I do not mean to copy or disrespect anyone else's take on it, but found it impossible to avoid all overlap while working from the exact same starting point. I have, however, tried to take this in a unique direction.


End file.
